Yankee Troller

When I am fishing I keep everything on as you see in the picture. During storage the lures come off.

Here is a picture of them in use on my ride:

That Shiznit has been a good one for us too! Nice job!

July 31st (Morning) – We had our annual trip with a family going back 3 generations. Grandpa Mike, his son Mike, and Mike’s sons Jake and Ryan joined us for an exciting day on Lake Ontario. We set up on the inside looking for a big guy or two. I am always a sucker for that inside water in the early morning. The screen wasn’t exactly good, but it had its highs and lows. Only thing we could pop out of there were a few skippy kings. We pushed in NW looking to head out to deep water for a steelhead bite, but a few phone calls confirmed that the bite out there wasn’t any better. We turned the boat east and zigged and zagged down to the flats to see if we could find something. We had rods popping all morning long, but in the end we would have 2 fish that would make the legal size limit. A beautiful 9lb Rainbow Trout and a King Salmon in the 6lb range. Our set-up today consisted of 3 riggers loaded with a variety of spoons, 2 wire Walker Deeper Divers pulling Paddle/Fly combos, and 2 300 coppers with spoons. The HOT spoons of the day were DW Shiznits, Midnight Specials, Gators, NK Sea Sick Waddlers, and Stinger Later Gators. We also tried out some of those LJ Shoehorn spoons and they took a few fish also. For paddles we ran an Albino Gator, a Gator, and a Wonder dot. These were trailed by Hammer and Hypnotist A-TOM-MIK flies. I guess you can’t always catch the big ones, but what made this trip fun was the fish we were catching were the right size for the two boys. Given the size of these fish most of the time they could reel these fish in on their own without any help from their dad. I really enjoy taking kids out and getting them into some fish. It really puts smiles on their face like you wouldn’t believe. (Evening) – This was a special trip! We surprised my father by taking him out on his boat for the first time this year. He had a serious accident in November and wasn’t able to fish any tourneys with us in 2010. We only had a few hours to fish, but I wanted to check out the offshore bite. We headed out to the 30N line and worked it North to the 32N line and in a couple hours of fishing mid day we hooked and landed 5 fish. 2 of those 5 were keepers. We had heard when we got off the water in the morning that there was a great bite out at the 34N line in the morning. We tried to get there, but just never made it. However, it solidified the decision to head there in the morning. The DW Shiznit and NK Sea Sick Waddler were the spoons that took the shots on our evening trip. August 1st Today we had a guy that works with me at my day job join us with some of his friends. This was his 3rd time out with us, and believe me when I say he was spoiled last year on his August trip by Mother Nature and the fish god. We headed out to the 29N line where I wanted to set-up and troll north. It was bumpy when we got out there, but I knew that is where the bite was. We fished a total of 2 hours before we had to head back in with a sick member of the group. In those two hours we smoked them, although you wouldn’t have known by looking in our cooler. At first I ran a simple 3 rigger, 2 wire, 1 copper spread. We were in 3-5’s for most of the morning until they built to 4-6’s. After a disappointing show from our wires I decided to add two more to try and dial the wire bite in. On our riggers we pulled DW Shiznits, Stinger Later Gators, and NK Sea Sick Waddlers. They were parked from 50-80' down. The first fish took our Stinger Later Gators, and I mean that literally. Bye Bye Stingers! Thanks Mr. Steelhead! No more Later gators onboard so down went a DW SS Gator. The riggers would take most of the smaller fish on this morning. On the 300 copper I ran a Mag DW Gator. This rod alone took 3 majors. One of those fish was even able to crack me off into the copper. Very disappointing! We landed 1 of those 3 majors. Our 4th major came off the wire out 175’ set on a 1 pulling a DW 42nd Paddle/A-TOM-MIK 42nd fly. Dropped him too! The Kings that we did hook into were pizzed! They were making 3 and 4 runs. It was actually pretty exciting to see them fighting like this. The waves made it much harder to fight these guys, and they definitely stuck it to us on this morning. The cool story of the day happened when I was setting out my high diver. I was holding my low diver in my hand off the back of the boat and had a King hit it. He hit it and just started SMOKING line off the reel. It’s a wonder the rod didn’t end up taking a swim.

I guess it isn't in this one day shootout! Oh well!

We had Casey Prisco (Cold Steel team member) and Mike Decker (White Cap Charters 1st mate) on board as they were looking to grab six big guys to win the Little Salmon River Challenge. We left the dock at the Oak at 5:30 and headed out to check the inside waters. We set down in 100' and worked our way East down to the glass house. We set up a three rigger, 2 wire, 2 copper set up. On our riggers we ran spoons with sliders. We started off with a DW SS Midnight Special, Stinger Later Gators, and Stinger Glow Green Alewife's. On the wires we ran an Albino Gator/A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow and a 42 combo. The 300 copper pulled a Stinger NBK mag, and the 400 copper had a Wonder dot SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly. All the rods would fire as we trolled down to the glass house. The screen was very good between 100 and 110. Lots of bait and marks, but the fish were DINKS. Mostly Salmon, and they hit everything we had to offer to them. Once we reached the glass house we made the decision to turn it North. As we did this I put down my overcast spread which consisted of DW SS Green Eye Ghost's and Shiznits. Well, it didn't take long and the Green Eye Ghost went. We started picking more Dinks, but now we had a few nice Steelies playing with our spread. With less than 2 hours to fish we got a call from our buddy in the Maniac boat. He said rumor had it some Majors were being taken about 10 miles West of us. We cleared lines and made the run. Once we got down there we set our lines and rods began to pop. We changed out the Albino Gator Spinny/A-TOM-MIK combo for a White Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Little Boy Blue on the wire. Our first two shots came on the wires. The Gator Spinny with a Green Crinkle A-TOM-MIK fly took a nice Steelie and the White Spinny A-TOM-MIK Little Boy Blue took the Major. This Salmon took a few nice runs, and it didnt help that we were fighting it in 3-5' waves. I had to drive due to the conditions, so Casey was on the net. On our boat we run our leads off the divers long. Well, Casey went to net this hog and came up short. He caught the hook and popped it out. From the bridge I could tell it was a nice fish. One we NEEDED. We set back up and it didn't take long as we came back upon our waypoint. Doubled again. That same White Spinny/A-TOM-MIK Little Boy Blue, and the rigger with the DW SS Green Eye Ghost. Target on the fly and a nice Rainbow on the spoon. This rainbow would take some great jumps behind the boat and multiple short runs, but it found its way to the cooler. We would finally get the King to the net, and it was time to head in. Five bites in the last hour allowed us to get our box of fish to weigh in for the LSR Challenge. We had 5 nice Rainbows and 1 low teen King. About 3pm I get a call from Casey, and I hear we were DQ'd because we had a block of ice in the cooler. He said we would have had a top five box. I also got a call from my brother who fished with the Sea devil boat in Oswego and they were DQ'd because they had an extra fish in their box. They had the winning box, and all those massive Kings were laid over a little Brown trout. Oh well, I think Casey and Mike had a lot of fun on the "West Side!" I never counted the amount of bites we took today, but we had non-stop action all day. We just laked the size, which we found at the end of the day. A huge thanks to Maniac for that phone call.

And to think I was busting his chops when I had him by half a pound on Saturday! Open mouth Insert foot Nice job Bill an crew!

Exactly! Lol

Captain Jack's Shootout - 5th Place!!!! We were supposed to have a camera crew on our boat this morning, and what a morning it would have been for some TV footage! We talked with Billy V on our practice strategy, and it was going to happen like this. We were going to run about 5-8 miles West and set up and troll West, and Billy was going to start fishing right out front. I knew from my brother that East was a total dessert when he fished there Thursday. Well, 5:30a.m. came and there was no phone call or no camera crew, so I did what I do best at 5:30a.m. on a tourney day….I left the dock! Phone call came around 6a.m. from the producer saying they found my dock, but I wasn’t there. Too bad, because we had a heck of a day! We ran west until we came about a mile from Pultnyville. We set up in 50-60fow with a Brown Trout program, and it didn’t take long! We ran a 3 downrigger, 2 wire, 2 core set-up with mostly Stingers and DW SS’s. Our BT spoons of the day were a Stinger Blond Chicken Wing, and my favorite BT spoon, the Stinger Penguin. We did a few BT, but not anywhere close to a limit down west. Reports from Billy V were that his BT bite was on FIRE! We kept pushing west and we started to put a little more water under us. My brother put a 300 copper out of the back of the boat with a DW Mag Gator once we cleared the 80’ mark. Once we hit the 95’ mark that rod exploded with a screaming reel. After a few great runs a 20lb King Salmon hit the deck. OK, so we have Kings around do we? Well, the screen lit up at 100’ with bait and fish, so down went the King program. DW Spin Doctors, Legendary SmartFish and A-TOM-MIK flies on every rod but one. It didn’t take long after that and the new DW Spin doctor called the Albino Gator trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea was ripping line off our Daiwa Saltist/Heartland wire combo. I grabbed the rod, but I just held on for the ride until he spit the hook and continued on his way down to the Salmon River for his September ritual. Mean while the 10 color off the board takes a shot, and a 10lb King hits the deck of our boat. We worked this area off the Ginna Nuclear Plant for the rest of the day and even called in Billy V for some action. We would pick through a lot of Lake Trout up to 16lbs that were mixed in with the Kings. They were taking our DW Spin Doctors, Legendary SmartFish and A-TOM-MIK flies very regularly. At one point we had a rigger pop and I was on the rod. It was a Green SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly on the main line and a DW SS Shiznit on the slider. WE get the main line to the net and notice a fish was also on the slider. The paddle/fly had a 15†Lake Trout attached to it, and the slider took a 14lb Atlantic Salmon. This Atlantic would be one of the three fish we would weigh in at the Captain Jack’s shootout. The other two fish were the 20lb Salmon and a 16lb Lake Trout, and that would be good enough for a 5th place check! We knew we had a solid plan for the weekend tourney after discussing what we had and what Billy V had. That’s the nice thing about having a GOOD friend to help cover some water in practice. We only get to practice one day before each tourney due to our work schedules. Lake O is too big to cover in one day! Check out some screen shots of the bait off the Power Plant: Sodus Pro/Am 2010 Saturday 7/17 (Day 1) - Our plan was to Brown Trout fish the two points West of Sodus because that is where Billy V SMOKED them on Friday. I told our team if we can get 10 BT then we need to pull off them and go get two big guys. Well, as fast as we could get rods down BT were smoking our offerings. Well getting to 10 BT took us about an hour and a half, and that was with a lot of stockers that had to be put back and a few short fish. Not to mention the few we lost die to the soft mouths that these Trout have. Our program was very simple and consisted of 3 downrigger, 2 wires, and a chute core. On the downriggers we ran cheaters on each rod. On the downriggers we ran a pair of Stinger Penguins, a pair of Blond Chicken Wings (which got changed out to Stinger NBK’s), and a pair of Dreamweaver SS Midnight Specials. On our wires I set up a pair of Walker Deeper Divers in the clear color with a 20lb McCoy fluorocarbon leader. I wanted a stealthy approach for this presentation. We set them out on a 3 setting, and we put a prototype Stinger Stingray Sea Sick Waddler on them. I would say that the wire divers accounted for half of our fish, and even accounted for the larger fish of the day. As I mentioned above the 10th fish hit the deck about 8a.m. and it was decision time. The fish seemed to be getting larger, and our Easterly troll was taking our larger fish. SO 3 out of 5 guys said let’s stay on these fish, and that’s what we did. It didn’t take long and our limit was completed by 8:30a.m and we were headed back to the dock for some breakfast. At noon we were able to put our fish on the scales, and by the end of the day not getting a few kicker fish hurt us, and we were sitting in 15th place. From 15th place to 2nd place was about 10-15 pounds. Well within reach of a good box on day two. Sunday 7/18 (Day 2) – Our plan was to duplicate Saturday’s game plan. Same program and same lure selection. Well, when we set down and started to get lines down we noticed the warm water piled in. We ran our waypoints for an hour and we knew we needed to make a move. We picked up and headed west. We set down a few miles West of where we were and Billy V said he had some fish going. He had cooler temps, and a better screen. Right away we started to hook up. Boat control was critical today as we battled 4-6’ waves, and at time even larger. We started to pick away at the fish, and thought it would not be a problem to box on this day, but the warm water kept piling in and we had to keep trekking West, which was a chore because that meant going into the waves the whole way. Again our stealthy diver set-up was our top producer. By the end of the day we would box 9 fish consisting of 8 BT and 1 small King. We would throw back 4 or 5 stockers and 1 17.5†fish. We would also go on to lose 3 keeper fish mainly due to Mother Nature. Those three lost fish cost us a check, but that is fishing! I’m sure A LOT of people lost fish this weekend. Anyone who knows our team can attest to the fact we DONâ€T BT fish EVER. So, this weekend was a fun weekend because we learned a few things about fishing for these fish. The only time we target BT is when we are banging the shoreline in April. So even though we came short of boxing on day 2 we gained a real confidence boost when it comes to targeting these fish. We would finish the tourney in 13th place, which is 3 places out of the money! It was our first time in 2 weeks and 4 tourneys that we didn’t place with a check. On a side note our 17.04lb Steelhead we put on the Summer LOC derby leaderboard ended up in 2nd place. It now sits at Mountain Man Taxidermy where I will have it mounted.

Thanks boyz

Friday 7/9 (Fat Nancy Shootout) - We broke the pier heads at 6am after sleeping in our cars with the AC on all night. The humidity was terrible, so sleeping on the boat was a no go (even with two fans). We headed West and set down in 90fow and worked NW. Our program for the morning consisted of 3 riggers parked at 80, 100, 120. The two deep riggers had paddles on them and the high rigger in the center was run with spoons cheated. We ran two Deeper Divers set on a 1.5 setting out 275'-350' throughout the day. Lastly, a 400 copper, a 500 copper, and a 600 copper. All the coppers were towing flasher/fly combos. We got set-up and didn't move a rod for about 30 minutes. All of a sudden our new prototype custom Albino Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly starts SCREAMING! I'm on the rod and he isn't stopping. AS we are trying to tame this beast I look right and here is a charter captains pinching in on us. I look left and there is Tom Burke from the Cold Steel. We are feeling the pinch. We call over to Burke and he makes a quick turn and allows us the room we needed. We had to raise our riggers so that we wouldn't take his coppers. Oh, by the way the other guy yelled at us for not knowing how to drive! Anyway, we boat that fish a while later and its a healthy 25lb BRUTE. It's on! We need 3 more decent ones now. We trolled on to the NW and picked away at fish. Mostly small ones, but a few keeper Salmon would hit our deck. Our next big guy would come late morning on a 500 copper pulling our custom Green SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly. He tipped the scale at 19 pounds. We knew we needed one more good one, so we kept trucking on to the West. We were on the phone with a few buddies (Billy V and the Candy Team) and knew that there was a pick all the way through to West 9 mile point. We have always done fish off West 9 mile point in previous years fishing this tournament. It was early afternoon with about an hour and a half to fish and our new prototype custom Albino Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly starts SCREAMING again. We get on the rod and within minutes our second 19lb Salmon hits the deck. We didn't think we had enough weight, but we knew it would be close. We continued to pick away at some smaller fish, but we would have never taken a tournament box of fish by days end. Our last fish of the day took the 400 copper (first bite that rod took all day) with a Chrome E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Frozen Frog Fly. About 1:30pm we said enough was enough and headed for the scales to see where the cards were going to lay. At the sales a few nice fish were weighed in, but only one other team was able to string three of them together. They missed out on 1st place my a measly 1 pound. We won with 63 pounds and change to take the 2010 Fat Nancy's Shoot Out. Saturday 7/10 (Day 1) - We headed out to our waypoints from Friday, and right away we had a mess in the back of the boat. We got pushed in shallow by another tourney boat, which was my fault. I should have positioned us better while we were waiting for the official start time. We caught our 500 on the bottom and lost our custom Green SmartFish and then we dragged a wire and a rigger on the bottom. As we were letting the otter boats out the tether line got stuck in the tow line and the otter dove under our boat. A few choice words, and some high blood pressure and we got set back up and we were fishing. Our program for the morning consisted of 3 riggers parked at 80, 100, 120. The two deep riggers had paddles on them and the high rigger in the center was run with spoons cheated. We ran two Deeper Divers set on a 1.5 setting out 275'-350' throughout the day. Lastly, a 10 color, a 500 copper, and a 600 copper. Coppers were towing paddle fly combos, and the 10 color had a spoon run on it. We sat for an hour without a bite, and then all of a sudden we went BANG BANG. We boated to Salmon. One took a Wonderbread SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer on the 120 rigger, and the other came on a Green dot Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK B-Fly on the 100 rigger. That would be the end of our Salmon bite. Later in the morning we would find a few suspended Brown Trout over 170fow down 80'. One took an NK THAT spoon, and the other took a White Green dot SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly. About 12pm we made the decision to slide into Ford Shoals and see if we could pick up a few Brown Trout. It didn't take long and we had rods poppin'. One Brownie took a Stinger Glow Froggy on the 10 color. Another would take a Purple Frog Fishlander on the 300 copper. We would drop another keeper Brown Trout and toss back a stocker. That was the extent of our day 1 box. Four Brown Trout and two Kings. Sunday 7/11 (Day 2) - We made the decision as a team to try the King bite for two hours and then go chase the Browns. We began with the same program we had Friday and Saturday morning, and it didn't take long. We would pick away at the fish till about 11am. The bite was pretty nice, and we had action all morning. Mostly a paddle bite for us, but an NK THAT spoon kept us busy with the 17-18" Salmon on our 80' rigger. At 11am we were sitting on 1 Laker and 9 Kings. Our fish were coming all over our spread. Green paddles had to have chrome on one side and glow on the other with either Green Crinkle A-TOM-MIKs or A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. Our Mountain Dew E-Chip with an A-TOM-MIK TG went once, our new Albino Gator took two fish with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly, and our Green dot Smartfish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist went a few times. All the rods fired today at least once, but no one rod was HOT. By 1:00pm we would have 9 Kings and 1 Laker in the box with 4 lost fish and 6 throw backs. My brother looks at me and says "can I check that rigger? it looks like its throbbing." I told him no, and kept an eye on the rod. A few minutes later I told him to check that rod, and sure enough there was number 11. A 20" King. At 1:40 we started picking the rest of the lines, and sure enough there was another fish on that NK THAT spoon. As we boated it we said it may go 18", but when the ruler hit the fish it was 1/4 of an inch short. We ended the day with 4 nice Kings, 1 small Laker, and 6 decent to small Kings. We were pretty excited because we knew some teams were struggling on the Brown Trout bite, and that no teams except for Billy V, Candy, and High Voltage were in the area producing all these Kings. When we hit the scales with our 11 fish we shot right into the top ten and never left it. We finished the tournament in 9th place to end a very exciting and eventful weekend.

I have my 300-700 coppers on Daiwa 9'6" Diver rods. Not a complaint here about them.

Super Slims and a close second would be 28 size and Stingray.

Those are gonna be a dime a dozen come August and September! It's a great fish for this time of year though. Congrats to Kevin, and too bad it only lasted a day as the grand prize fish for the Summer LOC.

Not a problem Nailer!

7/5 - We left the dock at 6am with some friends looking for either a derby winner King, or another Steelhead since ours was knocked off the pedestal. My buddy Anthony joined me today with his buddy Matt, and his girlfriend. I knew that we wanted to head right down to the "flats" and see if we could get the Kings going like we did yesterday. We set-up in front of the Oak and trolled the 5 miles down to the flats. We ran a 4 diver, 3 rigger, 1 copper program. Our deeper divers were set on 1 for the low divers, and 2.5 for the high divers. All pulled paddle fly combos. Dreamweaver Gator Spind Docto/A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle, Dreamweaver 42nd Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK 42nd fly, Wonder Dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a Green SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly were the combos we choose and all took fish throughout the day. On one side we ran the divers at 175' and 250' back, and on the other it was 200' and 275'. We ran a mix of spoons on the riggers early then stuffed paddle/fly combos down deep later in the morning. Dreamweaver Midnight Specials, Stinger Later Gators, and Northern King Copper NBK's all had their moments. The copper (400') never took a shot all morning, I put a Green Dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly on it as it is a go to combo, but nothing wanted to play with it. We had a great mix of fish today. Our biggest King was about 23 pounds. He was a really short fish with HUGE shoulders and he took Matt for a ride on the wire making runs at Tuna speeds! We also did 2 Atlantic Salmon, which are always a treat. Thanks Canada! The bait, and fish, really moved in to the flats area today. Probably the best screen I have seen out at the Oak in a few weeks. Check out some pictures from today. 7/6 - Steve and his son Tim joined us for a day out on Lake Ontario. They are AVID fisherman from NJ, and Tim wanted to experience trolling Lake Ontario for Salmon and Trout. I can assure you that he will never forget it! You can tell when someone really appreciates the experience because they can't keep the cooler lid CLOSED! LOL Right away I knew that if we wanted some Kings there was a pile of them down on the flats. We started off right in front of the Oak and did the same troll down to the flats as yesterday. However, today the water chilled down and the temp came up. at one point we had 50 degrees down 50. The screen was blank, and we sat for the first hour and a half with not even a sniff. We finally made the decision to head deeper and that's when we found a little "honey hole" at the 24N/6W line. A great mix of Kings, Cohos, Atlantic's, and Rainbows. There was a break between 60 and 70 that was 15 degrees and the fish were all over it. If it weren't for the rods poppin' you would have never known there were fish there. The screen on our Hummingbird was BLANK the whole time we were out there on that 175-250. Our program today started out with 4 wires, 3 riggers, and a copper. Once we went deeper we pulled 2 wires and sent out another copper. Our riggers were set between 50 and 80. Northern King Copper NBK was a good one today, but late in the day a Dreamweaver Raspberry Dolphin had a good run. Stinger Later Gators, Northern King Lazer Spooks, and Dreamweaver Midnight Specials all took a few fish. Our Deeper Divers were set out to 180' and 210' on a #2 setting. One had a Dreamweaver Gator Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle the other had a Dreamweaver 42nd Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK 42nd fly. Our hot rigs today were the pair of 300 coppers that we fished off our Otter Boats. One had a Green SmartFish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Pro/Am Glow fly, and the other had a Chrome E-Chip trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Frozen Frog (a Captains Cove exclusive). We found all year classes of Kings. The biggest King tipped the scale at 20lbs. We did a few really nice Steelhead with the biggest being about 11lbs. We did a few more Atlantic Salmon today, and one tipped the scale at 9lbs. Just a fun day for a father and son out on Lake Ontario. Check out some pictures.

LOL....Adam.....that'd be nice, but if you have your own ride just head over to Lake O and get on them. I'll give you whatever info you need if you do.

7/3 - We headed out today with a four man crew. My GF, brother, my brothers friend Adam, and myself. We were in derby mode! Looking for that grand prize winner! We went a few miles West before we set-up because I knew there had to be a temp break that way. Reports from Olcott were that the temp was a lot higher than what we had at the Oak. I figured if I found that break it could be layered with fish. We never did go far enough West to find that break, but we started to pick at the fish a few miles West of port. Our program today was 3 riggers, 3 wires, and 2 coppers. We started out fishing 150-225, but ended in 130. Out in 150-225 we couldn't keep the 8-12lb Rainbows off our lines. It almost got annoying. I say that because these fish didn't have much left in them at all after their little fight. We tried everything trying to revive them, but the water is so warm up top, and they spent so much energy jumping and putting on a show for us. With the high sun our HOT spoons the last few weeks just didn't have it in them. We threw down the high sun go to's and it was on. Northern King Copper NBKs, Later Gators, and Dreamweaver Midnight Specials on the riggers. On the wires we ran a Wonder Dot SmarFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, Dreamweaver Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle, and a Dreamweaver Hawg Wild Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Sweet Pea fly. Our coppers were 500 and 400 pulling a Green Dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist Fly, and a Green SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Green Hammer. Everything took fish today. Late morning we decided to slip in tighter to see if we could get a few Kings. They had been missing from our catch the whole morning. Once we hit 130fow off the flats the Salmon began to show themselves, and they didn't want metal. It was strictly a fly bite. We took a few smaller Salmon and teenagers before we hit the 20lb mark. Our big guy of the day tipped the scale at 22/23 pounds. He took the Hawg Wild Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly. Here are a few pictures from the day. 7/4 - Today was GF day on the Yankee! LOL My brother and his GF, my GF, and our buddy Rob and his wife. Lets begin by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the USA! We were after one fish today, and that was a 30lb+ Salmon. We never found him, but we beat up on his buddies all morning. We started in 120fow and only left that later in the day for 140-160 to stay on top of the Kings. Today was all about the paddles. We ran 4 wires, 3 riggers, and 1 copper. Only rigger that was run clean with spoons was our center rigger down 70' and it was pulling a pair of DW SS VQ Green Dolphins. Our deep rigger had a chrome Dreamweaver Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea cheated with a Dreamweaver Midnight Special. Our other corner rigger had a Hawg Wild Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIk Sweat Pea cheated with a Stinger Nuclear Green. Our wires had the Gator Spinny/A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle, 42nd combo on one side set 175 and 250 respectively. A Wonder Dot SmatFish/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a Green SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist set 200 and 275 respectively. The 42nd and the Green SmartFish were just on fire first thing. Once we put the attractors mentioned above down on the riggers they took over. Most everything fired today except for the low wires. Everyone caught Salmon today, and we all had a blast. The fishing continues to be great out of the Oak. Actually, the fishing is GREAT all up and down the lake right now. We found the area 6 miles East of the Oak to be our best. Easterly troll was better than a Westerly troll. Very strong currents out there today. Here are a few pictures from today.

I went with a thru-hull for my 1157 and my 958. I use a switch to choose which unit gets the info from the ducer. I ordered an Airmar B-60, which is a flat thru hull ducer, so I can still trailer my boat. It runs on 50/200 unlike the stock 83/200 that humminbirds come with. Krenzer Marine was able to order this transducer for me since it is not a standard humminbird ducer. If you want thru hull I would recommend this one. If you have any questions about these units or that ducer please feel free to call me. You can find my # on my website.

Palmer knot or the wire knot works well with it. Look at Lake Ontario Tweets a few days back under Chasin' Tail Adventures and he posted a picture of what fleas look like and do to your downrigger when they get bad. We run it on 2 out of the 3 riggers on our ride, and I deal with it. The Scottys chew it off the braid pretty decent. Every time the ball comes up I have to hit it with the hose so they dont get stained. We fish the West end mostly on Lake O and the temps are a little cooler, so they aren't too too bad.

I'm hooked on Legendary Smart Fish, and recently Dreamweaver bought Legendary, so don't feel as if your a trader for trying the Smart Fish if you run a lot of Dreamweaver Spin Doctors....lol. My two favorite settings on these paddles would have to be an 11:30 and an 8:30. 11:30 gives the most whip, and the 8:30 just quivers the fly. You can also set a Smart Fish to run just like a Spin Doctor. I have two paddles that are ALWAYS in the water and they are the Green dot and the Wonder dot. All day every day those two are the best producers up and down Lake Ontario. We run A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist and Ultra Green Glows behind the green dot, and on the Wonder Dot Smart Fish its a Hammer fly doing the damage. Shredded and Regular, Glow and Non-Glow all work VERY well.

We run the Daiwa Heartland 9'6" for our low wires and the 10'6" for our high divers. I know Billy V runs the 9'6" for both his high and low and has no problems. If you can get away with going to a 10'6" diver rod I would, but most of us have narrow boats and that extra length helps. Now, if I was rich and owned a 33 or 36' Tiara I would go with the 8' diver rod for the low, and the 9'6" diver rod for the high. I'll keep dreaming..... Our deep king program usually consists of a 127 Deeper Diver on the low diver on a .5 and a 107 Deeper diver on a 2. When fish are above 100' we will go with a pair of 107's and run them on a 1 and a 2.5 or a 1.5 and a 3. Try to keep 1.5 between the two numbers. At least we do, and it works for us.

Damn! Must have been a slow day! LOL Just Kidding.....I know how fast those can accumulate. I have never run Cortlands Flea Flicker, but I have heard it does the job. We have been running 25lb McCoy Mean Green for 6 years now and it does a real nice job at keeping the fleas off too.

Yup, they are starting. I run 200lb Power Pro on my Scottys, and they were caked yesterday. Wires weren't bad with 30lb American Fishing Wire, and my 25lb McCoy Mean Green on my riggers rods were bare of any fleas.

We joined forces with Maverick Sportfishing and Hideout Charters to take out a group from the company 5linx. 5linx booked this trip for some of their employees and some of their customers as an appreciation event. We left the dock at 2pm and fished till 5:30pm and I can guarantee that every person that went out had a GREAT time. All the boats reported multiple fish hook-ups at the same time. We started the trip with a quad, and landed 3 of the 4 fish. The one that got away was the biggest of the 4 (I swear that’s no fish story). We ran 3 riggers parked at 80, 95, and 110. On the riggers we ran spoons with sliders. DW Shiznits, DW Feelin Erie, and Stinger Later Gators. The temperature dropped a little further today. We finally found 50 degrees at 80’ down on our Depth Raider. Our Deeper Divers were set on a 1.5 and set out 250 and 200. Later on we slid each of them back 25’. We pulled a Wonder Dot SmartFish with a shredded A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a DW Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle on the wires. Lastly, we set out a 400 copper with a Icehouse chip/A-TOM-MIK Mirage Live, and on the 500 copper we put a Green Dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. A 7 rod spread was hard enough to keep in the water! As I mentioned above our crew started with a quadruple, and it seemed like when one rod went off another one would soon follow. We finally marked a few pods of bait tonight unlike the past few days. A lot of skippy kings were put back for the future of our fishery. We boxed 3 nice Kings, a Nice Coho, and a Steelhead in the end. All rods took fish at one point or another. Hot spoon of the day was the Shiznit AGAIN, but the other two spoons were very close behind. Chris Lopresti, who runs Maverick Sportfishing, says his Northern King 42nd spoon was his #1 spoon of the evening, and he was also the captain who took the big guy tipping the scales at 24lbs. Our big guy of the trip was a tad shy of 22lbs. We had another good one swim out of the net that might have challenged Chris’s big guy…LOL…but me, the captain, didn’t do so well on the net job. That fish still had a little left in him. Rob on the Hideout says his Gators were his best spoon of the night. We all fished the 24/25N lines straight out of the chute. The mix of fish right now is AMAZING out of the Oak. If you have a ride to get you out there then don’t miss out on this bite. We all smoked them in mid-day conditions!